DIRECTION OF TW BATTLES - TAKE NOTICE CA

[total relism]

CA has taken a turn in direction in battles compared to previous TW games that has become very clear with the release of Rome 2. They have made three changes to battles mainly to achieve this, all three have been rejected by the community soundly. All one has to do is read the forums and complaints,but some have made some polls.


New direction of CA- These have made the battles a simple click fest with no strategy or fun, it has simply become charge your unit to other unit, they run away after short period,repeat. click magic buff potion, click unit to charge there, they run,repeat, click magic button buff repeat. No more about strategy,maneuvering,terrain,flanking etc there isn't even time anymore for that, as the time to make a flank move,half their army is already running. Units seem to run with the speed of cheetahs. The fun is gone I see that all over the threads,many already simply auto resolve battles after just a few days, they are more like a job and no fun.To me im not able to plan come up with strategies or enjoy the great graphics of the game, as i spend my time hitting magic button buffs and watching units run around like cheetahs than retreat as soon as battle started.


why make this thread?In shogun 2 CA made very strong RPS effect, the community rejected the idea so CA reduced RPS in Rome 2. If we reject their new direction, maybe we could influence their future direction? as it stands now, i will never buy a TW game again, if it continues in this direction.


1] Ultra fast battles the speed of units, low morale so units run fast,high kill rates so units are ripped apart so they cant fight. All three contribute to fast paced battles.

95% said to fast 5% said just fine 0% said more speed
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...le-speeds-poll
97% said to fast 3% said not to fast.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...po-way-to-fast
84% said to fast 14% said just fine2% said wanted faster
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...tle-Speed-Poll


2] magic button buffs- these magic buffs turn the battles into click fest with who wins based on what magic button you push, instead of maneuvering, flanking, reserves, handling terrain,fatigue etc.I cant find polls right know, can someone post if they have them, they got buried deep already. The polls i saw post game on magic abilities were 90% against and the rest either indifferent or liked. All you have to do is read almost every thread that people mention what they dont like, and magic buffs will be on there.


3]addition of capture the flag


73% say its game breaking 20% say they dont like them but will play anyways 3% have no opinion and 4% like it
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-siege-battles
Here is some polling on that idea, 34% hate it 62% want it reduced to only siege battles. 4% like it.
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...-capture-flags

[total relism]

Fixed op so its readable,sorry for that.

[krisslanza]

This forum is hardly a good representation of the overall Total War playerbase. In my experience on this site over the years, it feels like what most of the people want (The vocal ones anyway) is some kind of "game" made by Paradox. I use the term "game" here loosely, considering Paradox games don't have much interactive bits in them...

More people here seem to be concerned with a staggering high standard of historical accuracy and realism, in a game series that has never once said it was historically accurate - they just give you a fitting historical feel/authenticity. If you see Romans, in Rome, they're doing their job. If you saw dinosaurs with laser beams in Rome, they'd be doing it wrong (though that'd be kinda awesome). Most of the features I hear suggest sound pointless and tedious, the battles work perfectly as they are now - if every battle should take hours, I'd play something else. The long, engaging battles are supposed to be during pivotal key moments of your campaign, and not just every single darn thing. What's the point? There's no "fun" or "long" battles if they're ALL needlessly tedious.

Pretty sure, at least some Medieval 2 and I think even Rome, all units have had a few "ability" buttons to use. I don't see how these are in anyway bad, given they're just the unit doing something special.

The CTF flag style system is to prevent you from having to tediously hunt down some last, hiding little enemy that refuses to rout in a battle, or to actually force the attacker, or defender, to play a certain way. Instead of just "lol gonna sit on this mountain and pick them all off" or something.

[TheFunnyOne1125]

[QUOTE=krisslanza;13216271]This forum is hardly a good representation of the overall Total War playerbase. In my experience on this site over the years, it feels like what most of the people want (The vocal ones anyway) is some kind of "game" made by Paradox. I use the term "game" here loosely, considering Paradox games don't have much interactive bits in them...

More people here seem to be concerned with a staggering high standard of historical accuracy and realism, in a game series that has never once said it was historically accurate - they just give you a fitting historical feel/authenticity. If you see Romans, in Rome, they're doing their job. If you saw dinosaurs with laser beams in Rome, they'd be doing it wrong (though that'd be kinda awesome). Most of the features I hear suggest sound pointless and tedious, the battles work perfectly as they are now - if every battle should take hours, I'd play something else. The long, engaging battles are supposed to be during pivotal key moments of your campaign, and not just every single darn thing. What's the point? There's no "fun" or "long" battles if they're ALL needlessly tedious.

[QUOTE]
Illl tell you whats long and tedious. Playing a bunch of super short battles. Kinda like hunting rebels in Medieval 2.
Nobody cares why YOU would play the game. Total War fans have enjoyed battles longer than 10+ minutes, for 10+ years. That's a simple fact. People have also enjoyed there Family trees for 10+ years also.

And I think the guys that like or want a game like "Paradox Game" are over on the Steam Forums.

[total relism]

This forum is hardly a good representation of the overall Total War playerbase. In my experience on this site over the years, it feels like what most of the people want (The vocal ones anyway) is some kind of "game" made by Paradox. I use the term "game" here loosely, considering Paradox games don't have much interactive bits in them...

if every battle should take hours, I'd play something else. The long, engaging battles are supposed to be during pivotal key moments of your campaign, and not just every single darn thing. What's the point? There's no "fun" or "long" battles if they're ALL needlessly tedious.

Pretty sure, at least some Medieval 2 and I think even Rome, all units have had a few "ability" buttons to use. I don't see how these are in anyway bad, given they're just the unit doing something special.

The CTF flag style system is to prevent you from having to tediously hunt down some last, hiding little enemy that refuses to rout in a battle, or to actually force the attacker, or defender, to play a certain way. Instead of just "lol gonna sit on this mountain and pick them all off" or something.

please support your claim that posters here, or on official forum dont represent majority, that is just something people say who dont like that 97% reject what they like. Who said every battle should take hours? not from my op, i would love a great epic siege battle to last that long, but not every battle. But we are no were near that so no point. how about units engage for an extra 2-3 minutes after first engagement, that would add about 5-10 minutes to every battle, similar to what mods do. As far as magic it destroys gameplay, there is dozens of threads exspalining that.

So our options are battles that last 10 mins at most, or 2- 6 hours, with no middle ground? I'm sorry thats a pile of bullplop. The options for battle max lengths in previous TW titles were increments of 20, 40, and 60 minutes. A maximum one hour cap doesn't seem too ridiculous. Right now in rome2 any cap more than 20 minutes is just over kill, as I can't see it taking that long for even 2 fully stacked armies per side to annihilate each other (maybe in a siege with walls in the way).

There are plenty of "action" oriented RTS's that are built around quick non-stop activity, Starcraft being the best example. Total War battles haven't been about that style of gameplay in the past. Its only with Shogun2 that we have started to see features like cooldown abilities being given to base line units.

As OP pointed out too many special ability buttons distract from using things like army formation, maneuvering, and terrain deciding battles. And saying there were abilities in previous titles doesn't address the issue, none of them were as powerful as what we have in Rome2. Its mostly the abilities with cool-downs that are causing the problems. They bring in too much single unit micro managing into the game. These types of abilities should only be given to the generals, not the mainstay units (the whip ability, frenzy, "quick reload" etc . . .) Stuff like wedge formation, testudo, shieldwall, are all fine.

And the "lol I'm going to sit on a mountain" gameplay is great. You see its better when the players use the game's base mechanics to force each other to play a certain way, rather than gamey arbitrary mechanics "forcing" them to utilize a strategy or tactic that wouldn't normally make sense. CTF points make sense in sieges, town assaults.

[Lathrim]

please support your claim that posters here, or on official forum dont represent majority[...]

Simple. Take the amount of people who voted against the inclusion of all the features you mentioned in your OP and subtract that from the amount of copies Rome II has sold so far, pre-orders included. Let's see what percentage you'll get. I'm betting less than 3%.

Fact is, most people who buy games do not voice their opinion in public at all. If you seriously think TWC and TW forums have enough active users to represent the majority of customers Creative Assembly has, well, I think you're severely underestimating the amount of copies their games sell.

[total relism]

Simple. Take the amount of people who voted against the inclusion of all the features you mentioned in your OP and subtract that from the amount of copies Rome II has sold so far, pre-orders included. Let's see what percentage you'll get. I'm betting less than 3%.

Fact is, most people who buy games do not voice their opinion in public at all. If you seriously think TWC and TW forums have enough active users to represent the majority of customers Creative Assembly has, well, I think you're severely underestimating the amount of copies their games sell.

hmmm, cant believe you dont see the faulty logic. You assume all others who did not vote like the fast battles, as i said what is your evidence,multiple forums agree with polls and reviewers on multiple sites. These polls are a sample of the players who play, when political polls are done, they do a very small % yet are pretty accurate almost all the time.

[Plan C]

[...]it feels like what most of the people want (The vocal ones anyway) is some kind of "game" made by Paradox. I use the term "game" here loosely, considering Paradox games don't have much interactive bits in them...

No, what most people are after is a game which offers some kind of intellectual, problem solving, decision-based challenge. Anything beyond the click orgy we have today. Overcoming challenge used to be the fun part of TW games, that has been replaced by furious clicking.

Pretty sure, at least some Medieval 2 and I think even Rome, all units have had a few "ability" buttons to use. I don't see how these are in anyway bad, given they're just the unit doing something special.

The key words are balance and purpose. Buttons in M2TW had a functional purpose which enhanced unit function; the ones in Rome 2 are just simple buffs, in addition there are no graphical clues as to the buffs being used. Also, those extra functions to units made them unique (as somebody mentioned in another thread - cantabrian circle, shield wall etc.) and abilities were pretty well balanced from unit to unit.

The CTF flag style system is to prevent you from having to tediously hunt down some last, hiding little enemy that refuses to rout in a battle, or to actually force the attacker, or defender, to play a certain way. Instead of just "lol gonna sit on this mountain and pick them all off" or something.

That may well be the case but the issue, as with most aspects of R2TW, is in implementation. The idea may be sound but implementation is awful. I've played the game some more lately and I am gobsmacked at how lazy the game feels. That's the overall feeling I get looking at the current standard of finish - lazy. And that is unfair because it is clear that many people work hella hard on their respective bits, it's just that someone failed very hard putting it all together.

Overall, regarding battles - I feel quite sorry for unit modellers and people who worked on textures and animations because whoever designed the battle system and the BAI effectively took a massive dump on their work. Like, totally, just wazzed in their face. I get virtually no time to even look at the close-up fights. Peeps who created ship models and textures have the right to feel totally betrayed as well as naval battles have been completely butchered.

The game feels like a collection of great ideas but implementation is lazy, half-baked and rushed. The battles are actually far more tedious now than they ever were in Medieval 1 where some took well over an hour (anybody remember those Mongol stacks?) because you don't get to think much in them, it's just reaction-based busy work, no wonder so many comparisons to COD.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...he-battlefield

[General Sherman]

So our options are battles that last 10 mins at most, or 2- 6 hours, with no middle ground? I'm sorry thats a pile of bullplop. The options for battle max lengths in previous TW titles were increments of 20, 40, and 60 minutes. A maximum one hour cap doesn't seem too ridiculous. Right now in rome2 any cap more than 20 minutes is just over kill, as I can't see it taking that long for even 2 fully stacked armies per side to annihilate each other (maybe in a siege with walls in the way).

There are plenty of "action" oriented RTS's that are built around quick non-stop activity, Starcraft being the best example. Total War battles haven't been about that style of gameplay in the past. Its only with Shogun2 that we have started to see features like cooldown abilities being given to base line units.

As OP pointed out too many special ability buttons distract from using things like army formation, maneuvering, and terrain deciding battles. And saying there were abilities in previous titles doesn't address the issue, none of them were as powerful as what we have in Rome2. Its mostly the abilities with cool-downs that are causing the problems. They bring in too much single unit micro managing into the game. These types of abilities should only be given to the generals, not the mainstay units (the whip ability, frenzy, "quick reload" etc . . .) Stuff like wedge formation, testudo, shieldwall, are all fine.

And the "lol I'm going to sit on a mountain" gameplay is great. You see its better when the players use the game's base mechanics to force each other to play a certain way, rather than gamey arbitrary mechanics "forcing" them to utilize a strategy or tactic that wouldn't normally make sense. CTF points make sense in sieges, town assaults.

[Riekopo]

Agree with OP completely

[TuuSaR]

This forum is hardly a good representation of the overall Total War playerbase.

Correct, but this forum is a very efficient yardstick what comes to development work and main reason why CA workers bother to read this. If game is turned towards the liking of TW veterans, it will unlikely do any harm for casual player.

They are not going to remove the magic system, but they might make a campaign option(on/off) if people demand it loud and clear.

[Rittsy]

Jump online until the game is patched/mods are released. You'll still need real strategy there. The problem with this forum is people remember playing mods fondly, but than don't recall how battle speed was always fast in Total War games. CA made the choice of fast battles based on how people were playing the games, not just on a whim. I agree that longer battles would be far more enjoyable, at least for me, however I, we, are not the majority of the user base. Also it might be more a problem of AI fielding low-level units rather than much faster battle-speeds...has anybody actually seen them field an army of high-quality infantry?

As for the buttons, they haven't really made much of a difference. Flanking and having the high ground are still far more useful than 'Whip' or whatever.

Capture the flag hasn't made much of a difference in the way I play, just had to be careful about being caught in a forced march stance...as you should be.

[total relism]

however I, we, are not the majority of the user base.
.

support please

[Gelston]

support please

Wait, are you asking for proof that the 1430 people in the first poll, the 164 people in the second poll, and the 42 people in the third poll are not the majority? I can assure you the game has sold a lot more than 2000 copies. What the majority of R2 players would vote, we will never know.

[total relism]

Wait, are you asking for proof that the 1430 people in the first poll, the 164 people in the second poll, and the 42 people in the third poll are not the majority? I can assure you the game has sold a lot more than 2000 copies. What the majority of R2 players would vote, we will never know.

no i am simple asking for support that multiple threads and polls do not represent the majority. that the majority disagrees with the 95% of all polls results as some assume.

[Gelston]

no i am simple asking for support that multiple threads and polls do not represent the majority. that the majority disagrees with the 95% of all polls results as some assume.

They are the majority of people who voted in those polls. They are not the majority of those who play the game though. We can't say what the majority would vote for.

[Boyar'sNephew]

As is often said in these discussions, a slider in options for battle speed, from "lightning" to "glacially slow", would resolve a lot of these problems.

And, as someone with absolutely zero programming background, I am quite confident that it would be easy to implement!

[SirPeacemaker]

Hey you, the TOTAL REALISM guy, I completely agree with you. And on top of that, lets say they are turning this strategic style game to arcade style game. No thinking at all, no plannings on battlefield, just click and run. Sadly people like games like that nowadays....

[CatoTheYounger]

double post